Point taken. I do agree that Vice City should not be sold to kids, but I think 18 is old enough. Hey, if they're expected to take a bullet for us, what are we protecting them from?
But I'll just say this: at least what happens in Vice City is realistic, and part of a gritty, sad, but realistic world. Morally, the acts depicted are as despicable as they are when they occur in any city of the world.
What is depicted in Custer's revenge isn't shameful because it's a couple having sex, or even a man raping a woman. Or even just a white man raping an Indian woman. I think it's shameful because it attempts to make a political statement by asserting the moral superiority of Custer, who set out to deliberately slaughter a people on their own land, and puts the player in the twisted role of avenging his defeat by an ultimately doomed culture. That's what puts it over the top for me.
Re:Reminds me of Soggy Noodle...
on
H2O/IP
·
· Score: 3, Funny
Seems to me, water was an uncreative choice for a creative project. Why not:
Wine - An object lesson in classy networking. Milk - Don't have a cow, but your MOO just got creamed. Diesel - Oh, you knew they were going to get into high tech somehow. Coffee - Finally the name "Java" makes sense! Antifreeze - Hey, it just might work! Urine - For something that has pissed you off so much over the years
I kind of agree with you, even though I enjoyed playing these systems as a kid.
However, the #1 most shameful game in the list, Custer's Revenge, would be shameful no matter when it was made, and it doesn't matter much to me that it was made 20 years ago.
In fact, I can't think of any commercial videogame that I've ever heard of that is more shameful! (OK, there are some homebrew flash games that are somewhat shameful, but even there, they often have a redeeming political or social message.)
So my point: If we want video games to be considered an art form alongside movies and novels, we can't give them a pass because of the passage of time.
Sure, our culture may be crappy, but it's never been better!
That's right. To heck with some rich mom's lawsuit: let people move their money around. The reason things seem worse now is 24-hour cable news that is like a vacuum cleaner for ratings-provoking headlines across the country. Used to be, nobody in Arkansas cared what anyone in Oregon was doing. But now, somebody passes gas and it's the "Fart Heard Round the World!"
There is absolutely no way that virtual worlds will be regulated in any way remotely similar to the way all these drugs are regulated. Society will change, people will grouse, moms will file lawsuits, and Sony will make money.
We just have to make sure we remember to preserve the REAL world in the meantime.
What could not have succeeded in a free economy, can be forced upon users and developers by an all-controling state.
I doubt it will really be forced on people. What is more likely is that the subsidized price of the Dragon will make it much cheaper than Intel-based PCs. Also, it will probably be accompanied by a "Buy Chinese" campaign, similar to the "Buy American" campaign in the late 80's.
I doubt Intel will mind as long as Dragon is running at 200MHz, but if it started to compete toe to toe, some kind of trade scuffle would happen, I'm sure.
All I can say is that when I first learned about cross-products in trig class, around 1986 or so, I was taught to represent them as a vector normal to the plane of the original vectors. That way made sense to me.
I later took calculus in high school, then advanced calculus, differential equations and linear algebra. That was it for me & math.
I honestly wish I could discuss your example intelligently, but I can't. It sounds like this may be an issue that the people who need to understand do understand, such as is the case with relativity and quantum mechanics. To most of the world, learning about and representing the world as Newtonian is entirely appropriate (IMHO).
The prime minister of New Zealand, Helen Clark, is showing off her country, as featured in the LOTR movies, by jetboating, ice-picking, rappelling into sinkholes, and overall doing some incredible things for a head of state.
You haven't seen a movies or television lately, have you?
That's a good counterpoint, but not a great one.
With movies and television, there are plenty of ideas, but the very limited (and expensive) channels of distribution prevent most of them--especially the experimental ones--from being tried.
In computing, the channels of distribution are much broader and cheaper. For less than a hundred dollars and a few days work, anybody can launch a website. Within a few weeks, it will be in most search engines, and if their information is useful, well constructed, or entertaining, that can leverage them into a whole business.
Or you can develop shareware and put it onto download.com.
Or you can invent a new compression algorithm if you're smart enough.
Or you can work on getting computing resources to the poorest people in the world.
I don't know, it seems to me that computing has a near endless future.
I mean, just think about Linux. You have a worldwide, voluntary community challenging one of the greatest companies in history. That doesn't inspire you?
My copy of America's Lost Treasure is on its way from Amazon. For those who haven't read Ship of Gold, what you will crave more than anything as you read it is pictures.
Apparently, Tommy's coffee table book is a near-perfect complement to Gary Kinder's excellent narrative. I must say, Mr. Kinder is a brilliant writer, however some of the scenes he describes strain even the vivid imagination.
As a person with no imagination at all, I can't wait for the picture book.
I know what you're saying, and I basically agree in most cases. However:
Tommy Thompson, through rigorous thinking, relentless networking, holistic design, etc... Achieved a scientific and engineering feat which far outdid the full resources of the US Navy, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, and, of course, countless treasure seeking dilettantes, while spending only a few million dollars from individual investors.
He did not have a PhD, but spearheaded and managed a revolutionary project that led him to employ his former superiors at Battelle, a major defense research lab.
When his team finally found the site of the SS Central America and saw her riches via his revolutionary deep water robot (late 80's), he wouldn't touch a coin before completely photographing and videotaping the site to preserve its archaeological integrity. Each coin of the thousands recovered was individually photographed in place and once retrieved by the robot, while some on the team groused at the delay.
It is difficult to convey the holistic nature of his approach in just a few paragraphs. But I believe his example proves my point that in a new field (in his case, deep water exploration and recovery), precise credentials don't matter.
If somebody thinks you can help him win the Nobel Prize, he'll hire you. If you use letters after your name and a resume to convince him of that, fine. If a 30-minute conversation does the trick--hey, that'll work too.
Reports of his "Death" are greatly exaggerated
on
Taken?
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
I'm a little surprised about all this Spielberg-bashing.
Are people saying that an older, highly acclaimed director with a lot of clout and past success can't make good movies? Look at Robert Altman.
Spielberg is 56 years old. He could be making movies for another 30 years, and who knows what he'll choose to do?!
At the moment, from what I gather, he is trying to ensure the profitability and stability of the brand new major studio he created, the first in many, many years. He seems to be having some success, especially in animated features, against the company that invented the genre.
Hollywood is nothing if not a breeding ground for surprises. We all know Minority Report could have been better--it wasn't the masterwork that Bladerunner was--but you have to give him credit for putting his considerable resources into a less-than-forgiving proposition.
If what we're talking about boils down to the difference between Minority Report and Bladerunner, then I think it's something both very small and very large. A little bit of inspiration goes a long way, you might say. Maybe the theme of Constitutional erosion wasn't as inspirational to him as the Holocaust or D-Day had been, but I have no doubt that he'll be truly inspired again, whether it's next year or in ten years.
I guess there'll be a few with outright credentials, some more who are smart enough to wing it while they learn what they're missing, and a lot of people who contribute as part of a team.
If you haven't read Ship of Gold by Gary Kinder, about Tommy Thompson's life and eventual recovery of $1 billion in gold from the deep sea, I strongly recommend it, especially to any scientific or engineering-oriented person. Tommy's story is a case study in how to break new ground, think creatively, and form networks of expertise. It convinced me that credendials, and even past experience, may not be the best indicators of future success.
maybe an organism could be constructed from scratch.
Of course, it wasn't created from scratch, but it may be the closest thing yet, and the most fully understood non-viral life form yet (many may have heard):
I agree, and I'd just go one step further. I don't think computing will ever reach a point of stagnation. Computing is about ideas, and as long as we are human, we'll always have new ideas.
I think the amazing thing is how these two fields are merging.
Whether you look at artificial life, prosthetics, advanced protein sequencers, electronic "noses", even robotic pets, it seems like at some point what we think of as electronics and computers, and what we think of as genetics or biology are all going to be part of a continuum.
I don't think it matters what you majored in--these days you can cross over.
Re:Simulating an infirmity or handicap
on
Old Age Simulator
·
· Score: 2
Is sometimes useful to gain understanding about it.
I'd like to simulate some infirmities which don't exist in reality.
For instance, what about those glasses which are like sideways periscopes and simulate your eyes being about a foot apart. Aparently this produces a very unsettling change in depth perception. However, aside from Ted Kennedy, how many people actually suffer from this condition?
In this vein, I would like to propose an annual shoe exchange and Mile Walk to promote understanding and compassion.
* it politically challenges their theory or * it politically supports their theory or * for practical reasons, they need to build upon that work or * they are specifically paid to validate it
They won't validate the result if none of those apply and:
* it has nothing to do with their work or * nobody gives a hoot about it or * they're stupid and lazy
Yeah. Well, you're so healthy and wonderful I just want to cram a granola bar down your frickin' throat!
You got your rictus grin and unimpacted colon, and your frickin' underwear smells like frickin' daffodils.
Wonderful! You know, Strom Thurmond exercised and ate right, and now he's 100, and BOY aren't we lucky!
You know, we age for many reasons, and evolution made sure we'd be around just long enough and not longer. To the extent that you save me some money in healthcare costs, that's great. But don't overestimate society's demand for self-righteous, self-involved, patronizing 120-year-olds.
LED Christmas lights are useful in the same way that my belt-mounted server, my chainmail jumpsuit, my GPS glasses, my trans-species Pet ID chip implant, my aerosol-lunch bandolier, and my camel-based office annex with solar array and client sidecar are useful.
Slashdot Mirror
Point taken. I do agree that Vice City should not be sold to kids, but I think 18 is old enough. Hey, if they're expected to take a bullet for us, what are we protecting them from?
But I'll just say this: at least what happens in Vice City is realistic, and part of a gritty, sad, but realistic world. Morally, the acts depicted are as despicable as they are when they occur in any city of the world.
What is depicted in Custer's revenge isn't shameful because it's a couple having sex, or even a man raping a woman. Or even just a white man raping an Indian woman. I think it's shameful because it attempts to make a political statement by asserting the moral superiority of Custer, who set out to deliberately slaughter a people on their own land, and puts the player in the twisted role of avenging his defeat by an ultimately doomed culture. That's what puts it over the top for me.
That's what I call "usin' your noodle"!
Seems to me, water was an uncreative choice for a creative project. Why not:
Wine - An object lesson in classy networking.
Milk - Don't have a cow, but your MOO just got creamed.
Diesel - Oh, you knew they were going to get into high tech somehow.
Coffee - Finally the name "Java" makes sense!
Antifreeze - Hey, it just might work!
Urine - For something that has pissed you off so much over the years
I kind of agree with you, even though I enjoyed playing these systems as a kid.
However, the #1 most shameful game in the list, Custer's Revenge, would be shameful no matter when it was made, and it doesn't matter much to me that it was made 20 years ago.
In fact, I can't think of any commercial videogame that I've ever heard of that is more shameful! (OK, there are some homebrew flash games that are somewhat shameful, but even there, they often have a redeeming political or social message.)
So my point: If we want video games to be considered an art form alongside movies and novels, we can't give them a pass because of the passage of time.
Sure, our culture may be crappy, but it's never been better!
That's right. To heck with some rich mom's lawsuit: let people move their money around. The reason things seem worse now is 24-hour cable news that is like a vacuum cleaner for ratings-provoking headlines across the country. Used to be, nobody in Arkansas cared what anyone in Oregon was doing. But now, somebody passes gas and it's the "Fart Heard Round the World!"
There is absolutely no way that virtual worlds will be regulated in any way remotely similar to the way all these drugs are regulated. Society will change, people will grouse, moms will file lawsuits, and Sony will make money.
We just have to make sure we remember to preserve the REAL world in the meantime.
What could not have succeeded in a free economy, can be forced upon users and developers by an all-controling state.
I doubt it will really be forced on people. What is more likely is that the subsidized price of the Dragon will make it much cheaper than Intel-based PCs. Also, it will probably be accompanied by a "Buy Chinese" campaign, similar to the "Buy American" campaign in the late 80's.
I doubt Intel will mind as long as Dragon is running at 200MHz, but if it started to compete toe to toe, some kind of trade scuffle would happen, I'm sure.
you became a believer while looking for freaking space-men?
Yeah, uh huh! You got it straight now.
However, I just can't emphasize enough that it's "freaking spacemen" that I'm looking for-- not your average, easy-going spacemen.
Hey, Bush gets out a bit!
Yeah, well maybe if he actually did some exciting and adventurous stuff like PM Helen Clark, he could let out some of that pent-up aggression!
Just keep him away from those pretzels.
this has gone on for one hundred years.
All I can say is that when I first learned about cross-products in trig class, around 1986 or so, I was taught to represent them as a vector normal to the plane of the original vectors. That way made sense to me.
I later took calculus in high school, then advanced calculus, differential equations and linear algebra. That was it for me & math.
I honestly wish I could discuss your example intelligently, but I can't. It sounds like this may be an issue that the people who need to understand do understand, such as is the case with relativity and quantum mechanics. To most of the world, learning about and representing the world as Newtonian is entirely appropriate (IMHO).
The prime minister of New Zealand, Helen Clark, is showing off her country, as featured in the LOTR movies, by jetboating, ice-picking, rappelling into sinkholes, and overall doing some incredible things for a head of state.
Makes George Bush look sedentary!
(article)
I didn't understand the impact of uncertainty until I saw The Crying Game.
You haven't seen a movies or television lately, have you?
That's a good counterpoint, but not a great one.
With movies and television, there are plenty of ideas, but the very limited (and expensive) channels of distribution prevent most of them--especially the experimental ones--from being tried.
In computing, the channels of distribution are much broader and cheaper. For less than a hundred dollars and a few days work, anybody can launch a website. Within a few weeks, it will be in most search engines, and if their information is useful, well constructed, or entertaining, that can leverage them into a whole business.
Or you can develop shareware and put it onto download.com.
Or you can invent a new compression algorithm if you're smart enough.
Or you can work on getting computing resources to the poorest people in the world.
I don't know, it seems to me that computing has a near endless future.
I mean, just think about Linux. You have a worldwide, voluntary community challenging one of the greatest companies in history. That doesn't inspire you?
YES! Ship of Gold is an EXCELLENT book.
My copy of America's Lost Treasure is on its way from Amazon. For those who haven't read Ship of Gold, what you will crave more than anything as you read it is pictures.
Apparently, Tommy's coffee table book is a near-perfect complement to Gary Kinder's excellent narrative. I must say, Mr. Kinder is a brilliant writer, however some of the scenes he describes strain even the vivid imagination.
As a person with no imagination at all, I can't wait for the picture book.
would not even bother to read the resume
I know what you're saying, and I basically agree in most cases. However:
Tommy Thompson, through rigorous thinking, relentless networking, holistic design, etc... Achieved a scientific and engineering feat which far outdid the full resources of the US Navy, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, and, of course, countless treasure seeking dilettantes, while spending only a few million dollars from individual investors.
He did not have a PhD, but spearheaded and managed a revolutionary project that led him to employ his former superiors at Battelle, a major defense research lab.
When his team finally found the site of the SS Central America and saw her riches via his revolutionary deep water robot (late 80's), he wouldn't touch a coin before completely photographing and videotaping the site to preserve its archaeological integrity. Each coin of the thousands recovered was individually photographed in place and once retrieved by the robot, while some on the team groused at the delay.
It is difficult to convey the holistic nature of his approach in just a few paragraphs. But I believe his example proves my point that in a new field (in his case, deep water exploration and recovery), precise credentials don't matter.
If somebody thinks you can help him win the Nobel Prize, he'll hire you. If you use letters after your name and a resume to convince him of that, fine. If a 30-minute conversation does the trick--hey, that'll work too.
I'm a little surprised about all this Spielberg-bashing.
Are people saying that an older, highly acclaimed director with a lot of clout and past success can't make good movies? Look at Robert Altman.
Spielberg is 56 years old. He could be making movies for another 30 years, and who knows what he'll choose to do?!
At the moment, from what I gather, he is trying to ensure the profitability and stability of the brand new major studio he created, the first in many, many years. He seems to be having some success, especially in animated features, against the company that invented the genre.
Hollywood is nothing if not a breeding ground for surprises. We all know Minority Report could have been better--it wasn't the masterwork that Bladerunner was--but you have to give him credit for putting his considerable resources into a less-than-forgiving proposition.
If what we're talking about boils down to the difference between Minority Report and Bladerunner, then I think it's something both very small and very large. A little bit of inspiration goes a long way, you might say. Maybe the theme of Constitutional erosion wasn't as inspirational to him as the Holocaust or D-Day had been, but I have no doubt that he'll be truly inspired again, whether it's next year or in ten years.
I can format my 50KB drum in 23 minutes!
and your home country would be... Pakistan?
this combination can be hard to come by
I guess there'll be a few with outright credentials, some more who are smart enough to wing it while they learn what they're missing, and a lot of people who contribute as part of a team.
If you haven't read Ship of Gold by Gary Kinder, about Tommy Thompson's life and eventual recovery of $1 billion in gold from the deep sea, I strongly recommend it, especially to any scientific or engineering-oriented person. Tommy's story is a case study in how to break new ground, think creatively, and form networks of expertise. It convinced me that credendials, and even past experience, may not be the best indicators of future success.
maybe an organism could be constructed from scratch.
Of course, it wasn't created from scratch, but it may be the closest thing yet, and the most fully understood non-viral life form yet (many may have heard):
New Life Form Created
The golden age is coming.
I agree, and I'd just go one step further. I don't think computing will ever reach a point of stagnation. Computing is about ideas, and as long as we are human, we'll always have new ideas.
I think the amazing thing is how these two fields are merging.
Whether you look at artificial life, prosthetics, advanced protein sequencers, electronic "noses", even robotic pets, it seems like at some point what we think of as electronics and computers, and what we think of as genetics or biology are all going to be part of a continuum.
I don't think it matters what you majored in--these days you can cross over.
Is sometimes useful to gain understanding about it.
I'd like to simulate some infirmities which don't exist in reality.
For instance, what about those glasses which are like sideways periscopes and simulate your eyes being about a foot apart. Aparently this produces a very unsettling change in depth perception. However, aside from Ted Kennedy, how many people actually suffer from this condition?
In this vein, I would like to propose an annual shoe exchange and Mile Walk to promote understanding and compassion.
Scientists will validate a result if:
* it politically challenges their theory
or
* it politically supports their theory
or
* for practical reasons, they need to build upon that work
or
* they are specifically paid to validate it
They won't validate the result if none of those apply and:
* it has nothing to do with their work
or
* nobody gives a hoot about it
or
* they're stupid and lazy
I plan on living a long, healthy life.
Yeah. Well, you're so healthy and wonderful I just want to cram a granola bar down your frickin' throat!
You got your rictus grin and unimpacted colon, and your frickin' underwear smells like frickin' daffodils.
Wonderful! You know, Strom Thurmond exercised and ate right, and now he's 100, and BOY aren't we lucky!
You know, we age for many reasons, and evolution made sure we'd be around just long enough and not longer. To the extent that you save me some money in healthcare costs, that's great. But don't overestimate society's demand for self-righteous, self-involved, patronizing 120-year-olds.
LED Christmas lights are useful in the same way that my belt-mounted server, my chainmail jumpsuit, my GPS glasses, my trans-species Pet ID chip implant, my aerosol-lunch bandolier, and my camel-based office annex with solar array and client sidecar are useful.
OK?!?